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On June 20, we celebrated World Refugee Day. This was an opportune time for us all to pay attention to the challenge of forced displacement today. Strikingly, the world is facing the largest forced displacement crisis since World War II, with nearly 80 million people having fled their countries because of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations or events that have seriously disturbed public order. All continents now face forced displacement crises, and migratory problems cross state and community boundaries.

Forced displacement has hit Latin American and Caribbean countries particularly hard, highlighting existing vulnerabilities such as increased levels of violence and, more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. Latin America is now home to one of the largest forced displacement crises in the world. As of March 2020, more than 5 million Venezuelans were reportedly living outside of their country, with 4 million of them in other Latin American countries: Colombia (1.8 million), Peru (1 million), and Ecuador and Chile (for a total of 1 million).

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Since the beginning of the Venezuelan crisis, most Latin American nations have tried to accommodate these recent arrivals, providing migrants with basic education, emergency health care services and legal status. These neighboring countries have provided a global public good by hosting millions at the risk of overwhelming their services and systems. But how will these nations be able to withstand the pressure?

Hosting countries face the new challenge of integrating larger numbers of migrants and refugees while dealing with the effects of the coronavirus outbreak. When taking into account that more than 60% of Venezuelan migration in Latin American countries is irregular and targets the most vulnerable populations, this crisis is now becoming a question of public health and safety and, ultimately, of regional security. It is time for the international community to provide a collective response that matches the magnitude of the crisis.

A first step was taken on May 26, with the virtual livestreamed on YouTube pledging conference for Venezuelan refugees and migrants that helped raise $2.79 billion in total commitments. This included $653 million of grant funding for the Refugee and Migrant Response Plan, which is a United Nations appeal to largely address the emergency needs of the migrant population.

The situation in Latin America calls for enhanced international support across the humanitarian-development nexus. In other words, the response should address pressing immediate needs such as temporary shelter and emergency medical services as well as the medium and long-term imperative of economic and social development through institutions, resilient local systems and service delivery. This is precisely what Colombian President Ivan Duque called for when advocating the shift from emergency response to medium and long-term development and integration.

To help countries mitigate the impact of the crisis and charter a pathway to growth and stability, there are five development priorities to focus on.

First, new ways should be explored to provide regular status to refugees and migrants, including through targeted regularization or employment-based programs. There have been several efforts to provide regular status to recent refugees and migrants arriving from Venezuela.

Colombia, Peru and now Ecuador stand out for their ambitious regularization programs for hundreds of thousands of irregular refugees and migrants. Amid rising public anxieties over migration in some countries, it may become harder to implement such mass regularization programs or offer regular status to most who seek to enter. The approach followed by Colombia in providing regular status to those who have employment in specific sectors may provide another alternative. Similarly, Peru has been trying to regularize students in the countrys educational system another strategy that Colombia and Ecuador seem likely to adopt in the future and one that may prove more politically viable in some countries.

Yet these approaches risk leaving out the vast majority of recent refugees and migrants who do not attend school or work in the formal economy, or the families of those who do benefit from such measures. Policymakers should, therefore, be thinking about the medium and long-term effects where providing legal status to refugees and migrants would produce optimal labor market outcomes for themselves and the country overall. The details of implementation in each case will matter enormously, but there is room for reiterative efforts that focus on specific different groups over time.

Second, health care barriers should be tackled through clear policies on access and financing. Almost all countries in the region, at least in theory, offer emergency health care to immigrants regardless of regular status. Still, specific policies are often unclear, and measures are not always implemented effectively at the local level, which means that migrants often have difficulties accessing health care in practice. In countries where local and regional governments pay part of health-care costs, financial burden sharing is also often unclear, leading local hospitals to cover costs that may never get reimbursed.

Creating clear policies and procedures defining both the services offered and what amount of costs will be covered and by whom are critical. In some countries, such as Colombia, Peru and Costa Rica, where residents need to enroll in the health care system to be eligible for benefits, it is vital to find agile ways of ensuring that new immigrants can register and sometimes to find ways of covering the costs of their care.

Third, access to education should be improved through flexible enrollment practices and ongoing support. One of the most critical decisions of countries has been to offer primary and secondary education to all students regardless of their status. In some countries, this was already embedded in the constitution, but others have more recently adopted these measures.

This helps avoid a generation of young people growing up without education and supports receiving countries to take advantage of the potential human capital of immigrant children who will likely grow up in their territory. In many places, however, strict registration requirements involving documents that are difficult for migrants and refugees to obtain can prevent some from enrolling their children in school.

There is also an urgent need to work with schools on policies, procedures and curricula to facilitate the integration of Venezuelan children, who may face challenges adapting to their new schools and need additional support to develop critical skills (e.g., history, culture and other country-specific knowledge). In several countries, access to college, graduate education and trade schools is also restricted for those who do not have adequate documentation, which risks wasting the human capital of immigrant youth who aspire to enter professional and technical careers, including in fields that are in demand in their new countries.

Fourth, migrants skills should be unlocked to boost labor market integration and local economies. The majority of Venezuelan adults suitable for paid work in countries across the region were already working before COVID-19. In fact, more than 90% of Venezuelan migrants in Peru and 8 in 10 Venezuelan migrants in Colombia were employed before the pandemic. While recognizing that the labor markets of many countries in the region are characterized by a high degree of informality, care should be taken to ensure that immigrants do have pathways to better-paid and more stable employment in the formal economy and to avoid creating conditions where employers can pay immigrants less than the prevailing wage, to the detriment of both newcomer and native-born workers.

There is no more important determinant for long-term positive labor market outcomes than ensuring regular status, which helps immigrant workers improve their wages over time and also helps avoid unfair wage competition between native-born and Venezuelan workers. Refugees and migrants tend to be relatively well-educated, which means that there is a wealth of highly skilled human capital that could benefit receiving countries.

To effectively leverage this potential, countries will need to create agile ways for immigrants to get professional and technical degrees earned in their home countries validated and recognized by employers. Argentina has done this through provincial universities, which has allowed the country to encourage professionals to leave the capital and settle in other provinces where their skills are in demand. Creating expedited credential recognition pathways for applicants willing to settle in an area of the country where their skills are most needed could also help fill labor market gaps.

Fifth, constructive narratives about immigration should be developed to highlight opportunities while not ignoring its challenges. There is no question that the sudden outflow of 5 million Venezuelans constitutes a migration crisis, and one that host countries are keenly aware of. But this migration is also an opportunity for host countries, as illustrated by increased predictions by the World Bank of regional future economic growth as Venezuelan immigration drives labor market expansion.

Immigrants, when they have access to legal status, education, health care, financial services and pathways to validate their studies, tend to become net contributors to innovation, entrepreneurship and economic growth over time. Several governments in the region have gone out of their way to maintain their focus on these long-term opportunities, even while dealing with the challenges that the sudden arrival of so many people creates for already overburdened public services. Policymakers require assistance to orient the public debate on migration by keeping an eye on the medium and long-term benefits (and designing policies to help attain them). Still, they must also acknowledge the real strains involved in dealing with sudden, large-scale inflows.

Multilateral support will be critical in helping countries in the region meet these policy challenges. While migration from Venezuela holds the potential to enhance economic growth in the long term, it is also creating real and tangible short-term costs for already overburdened schools, hospitals and infrastructure. Multilateral support can help countries of the region overcome these challenges and reap immigrations benefits.

This requires moving from emergency responses to long-term development and integration. While there is still a critical need for emergency services for recently-arrived migrants from Venezuela, as crises in these countries stretch on, it is also important to plan for the medium and the long term. The most important question in the future will be how to support inclusive development that can help host communities and immigrants build connections and improve their livelihoods together. Enhancing access to and quality of schools, health care facilities, housing and urban infrastructure in areas where migrants settle is vital. This is the key to successful integration and also an opportunity to turn a migration crisis into a net benefit for host societies.

While there is some need for temporary shelter and emergency medical services that international actors could help meet, the greatest needs for support have to do with building local capacity for integration and service provision both to new arrivals and long-time residents. For this, multilateral organizations like the World Bank should continue to be actively engaged in helping better manage the forced displacement crisis, in support of its mission to reduce poverty and contribute to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

*[The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The World Bank, its Board of Executive Directors or the governments they represent. The World Bank does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work.]

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observers editorial policy.

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Hosting Refugees and Migrants Is a Global Public Good - Fair Observer

The Covid-19-induced lockdown has resulted in a loss of jobs at home, but this is also set to reduce the number of Nepalis going abroad for work, which experts say could hit the countrys economy hard, as it will massively curtail remittance inflows.

There has been a huge slump in the number of work permits issued by the government to individuals seeking to go abroad for employment.

During the 2019/20 fiscal year that ended on Wednesday, the number of permits issued saw a drop of 27.5 percent, compared to the previous fiscal (2018/19), according to the statistics maintained by the Department of Foreign Employment.

If we didnt have the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent restrictions, the number wouldnt have dropped so much even as that had been declining, said Swarna Kumar Jha, a labour migration researcher.

A total of 368,433 labour permits were issued to aspiring migrant workers during 2019/2020, compared to 508,828 during the previous fiscal (2018/19), according to the Department of Foreign Employment.

Labour migration observers say that the main reason behind the slump is the government decision to suspend permits issuance.

Following the Covid-19 terror, the government stopped sending migrant workers abroad, said Jha. This resulted in the drop.

Following the spread of the coronavirus in labour destination countries, particularly in the Persian Gulf, Malaysia and South Korea, most of the countries enforced restrictions on international flights. Later, the Nepal government also suspended issuing labour permits to migrant workers, bringing the countrys foreign employment departures to a halt.

Rameshwar Nepal, a labour migration researcher, said the impact of Covid-19 on the countrys foreign employment sector was visible weeks before the government stopped issuing permits.

The drop in labour permits doesnt surprise me. Even before the Nepal government prevented Nepali workers from leaving, there were fears among aspiring workers who were reluctant to leave due to the crisis, said Nepal, who is also the South Asia director at Equidem Research, a UK-based human rights research organisation.

The movement of migrant workers had been declining since February. This was expected in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak.

Covid-19 has prompted a decline in employment opportunities for Nepali migrant workers abroad, experts say.

The number of permits issued has been on the decline for the last three years now as major labour destinations endure financial and political turmoil and some countries try to diversify their pool of workers. Countries such as Saudi Arabia have even adopted a policy of reserving jobs for their own citizens.

With the global economic slowdown impacting the labour migration sector, a drop in the money remitted by Nepalis working abroad is imminent. As per the World Bank estimates, the country is likely to suffer a loss of Rs145 billion in remittance this year.

Although there were fears of a massive downfall in remittances because of the pandemic, it is unlikely to be as worse as per the initial projections. But if there is a decline in the number of Nepalis going abroad to work, there will be a reduction in remittance inflows.

The Nepal Rastra Bank had projected a drop of over 15 percent in remittances in the current fiscal year and the Central Bureau of Statistics also projected a reduction of Rs163 billion or over 18 percent of the total remittance sent by Nepalis working on foreign soil the previous year. Last fiscal year, the country received a total of Rs879 billion sent home by Nepalis working abroad.

According to the central bank, the country received remittances amounting to Rs34.5 billion in Chaitra (mid-March to mid-April), compared to Rs71 billion in the same month in the previous fiscal year. The figure improved to Rs53.9 billion from mid-April to mid-May, and according to preliminary figures from the central bank, remittances from mid-May to mid-June grew to Rs62 billion.

Despite the changing policies of labour destination countries, Nepalis are likely to continue getting work opportunities, but in lesser numbers than in the past, say experts. That too will be contingent on how and when the economies recover from the shocks of Covid-19, according to them.

After every crisis, the economy crashes and then as time goes by, it is revived, said Nepal. When the economies rebound at a certain point, there will be employment opportunities again. But we do not know when it will happen. Some labour destination countries have reopened, but we are still in a wait-and-watch situation.

According to Jha, the reopening of labour markets might take some time as fear of contagion is high and measures such as physical distancing need to be followed everywhere, starting from the airport.

Labour migration experts, however, blame the Nepal government for failing to prepare in advance to cope with extraordinary crises even when the economy relies heavily on remittances sent by migrant workers.

The government has failed to take action over the long-debated issue of diversifying Nepals labour market beyond the Persian Gulf and Malaysia.

Like in the past, Nepalis have continued migrating to the same countries for work. Last fiscal year, the departures numbered 93,424 to the United Arab Emirates, followed by Saudi Arabia (83,163), Qatar (81,567), Malaysia (59,714) and Kuwait (16,862).

Experts have long argued that such a high concentration results in a host of risks for workers as well as the countrys economy.

Our government is not adequately prepared to seek alternative labour markets, said Nepal.

According to Jha, the ongoing Covid-19 crisis and governments inaction have had a multiplied effect on the countrys foreign employment sector, which already dealt with several challenges.

We know that the country receives remittances equivalent to over 25 percent of the countrys gross domestic product, and currently there is no substitute for it, said Jha, who also coordinates the National Network for Safe Migration, an organisation working in the field of labour migration and migrants rights.

The government has been coming up with policies to absorb migrant workers inside the country. However, we know they will not come into force immediately.

As the countrys large chunk of the labour force, which migrates abroad for employment, remains unskilled, mostly working for the construction sector and factories, it also makes it difficult to mobilise them once they return home.

Also, for several years, we sent unskilled workers abroad. Only if we had trained them before sending out, reintegrating them and providing them with jobs would have been much easier, said Jha.

The Nepal government has announced an ambitious plan to create nearly 700,000 jobs, mostly targeting returnee migrant workers.

But that wont be enough, according to researcher Nepal, as every year nearly 500,000 people enter the labour market.

Not having prepared in advance to create jobs for critical times like these impacts the most vulnerable, who are likely to suffer more, said Nepal. These migrant workers and their dependent families will face another pandemic.

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Covid-19 results in massive decline in labour migration numbers, with no immediate hopes of recovery - The Kathmandu Post

As Europe closed borders and suspended flights in early March to combat the spread of COVID-19, undocumented migrants and migrant workers remained for two months, many without living spaces or sources of income after the shutdown, leaving some to take shelter in gyms or out on the streets, some even attempting to as a last resort.

With most countries closing borders and issuing some form of stay-at-home orders, safety and services dedicated to asylum seekers and refugees has dramatically decreased. The result is a large number of migrants in Morocco and around the world facing dangerous health situations and increased economic insecurity.

Migrants in Morocco, even those with proper documentation, cannot reap the benefits of accessible state aid. For many, income and livelihood depend on mobility. The majority of migrants work in informal jobs (street vendors and uncontracted work such as cleaners), which . With closures many have no source of income and cannot qualify for any financial support by the government.

Without a source of income, some , and others skip meals. In the current situation, asylum seekers, refugees, and immigrants are more vulnerable to permanent job loss and deportation as movement is restricted.

What does this mean for the future?

Stigmatization, misinformation, and discrimination have led to further restrictions for migrants. False claims and reports that migrants carry the virus and spread it throughout communities. In Lebanon, Syrian refugees are targeted with curfews that do not apply to other foreigners or citizens despite the low number of of COVID-19 among Syrian refugees (only 1.3 percent).

New restrictions on migration suggest longer-term impacts on mobility and an increase in social exclusion, leading to issues like discrimination and even global divides as production shifts locally and economic isolation grows.

Limited mobility increases dangerous and illegal migration, forcing more to turn to smugglers, increasing vulnerability to human trafficking and abuses in the exploitation of peoples desperation. This includes further potential restrictions to migrant workers and migrants seeking refuge in third countries, like Spain or Italy.

Migration in a Moroccan Context

Traditionally an emigration country, Morocco has quickly become the safer migration route into Europe, with land access to the border in the Spanish enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta. Although the number of illegal border crossings into Spain has halved since 2018, the entering into mainland Spain last year came from Morocco.

Morocco has begun to dramatically reduce the number of illegal border crossings into Europe, but once caught, migrants can end up in a deportation loop. Arriving at the Spanish border, they are arrested and bused back to Southern Moroccan cities far from smugglers who could offer them passage. As authorities continue to restrict movement, migrants and smugglers are pushed to seek out new routes, such as by sea, which is often more dangerous.

Since 2014 the Moroccan government has run , giving residency permits to 50,000 migrants within the country. However, the UNHCR reports that gaps in accessing documentation and employment persist.

With tighter migration restrictions on popular destination points, such as Spain, France, and Italy, Morocco could see larger populations of migrant workers stuck indefinitely in migration centers such as Rabat.

What will come next?

Organizations like the High Atlas Foundation (HAF) offer some solutions. Beginning in 2020, law school students at the University Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah in partnership with HAF will provide to migrants in the Fez region, in particular victims of trafficking, young people, and women.

Fez is estimated to house of migrants, many of which come from Sub-Saharan regions of Africa and live within the new districts of the city. These districts are often modest or poor, and with limited legal access, migrants have trouble finding work. In a study of migrants in Fes, only of respondents reported that they are or had been engaged in paid work since their arrival.

Providing legal aid to migrants of trafficking networks and smugglers from taking advantage, while also offering law students the chance to gain valuable experience in the field, and connecting migrants and women to CSOs to develop skills and build their own cooperatives or businesses, which can reduce youth unemployment. With a stronger legal and economic support system, migrants are more likely to establish roots rather than risk irregular migration to Europe.

Developmental and human rights organizations are increasingly offering support to migrants around the country, yet it is important that organizations take further steps at the local level. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees () has repeatedly warned that certain quarantine measures and restrictions on free movement must meet international human rights standards. Rather than delaying asylum claims, they can be processed remotely, where restrictions prevent face-to-face interviews. Extending residency permits to those in-need can increase health access to migrants in areas affected by the pandemic.

In May, in partnership with the Moroccan government, the UNHCR and the National Council of the Medical Association to provide increased health care access and medicines for asylum seekers and refugees in Morocco.

Moroccan migration policies support a humanitarian approach and prohibit manifestations of racism. However, limited accessibility of resources for migrants and legal obstacles

Further steps can include greater health and legal accessibility for vulnerable migrant groups, including access to psychosocial support, emergency accommodation, pre-school education, childcare, mediation, and occasional emergency aid (such as in the case of a lockdown). October has historically been the month for migrants crossing from Morocco to Spain, so it is important to adopt these steps to prevent a surge in dangerous, irregular border crossings.

Jacqueline Skalski-Fouts is a Global Studies undergraduate student at the University of Virginia. USMBA Law students participate in skills-building workshops in preparation for opening a law clinic. February 2020, High Atlas Foundation.

By Jacqueline Skalski-Fouts

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The Forgotten Victims Of The Pandemic: An Ongoing Migration Crisis - The New Dawn Liberia

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MP with a vision and a progressive outlook towards issues Supriya Sule is a veteran at her job. The two-time top performing member of the parliament, Sule may belong to a family crowded with political leaders but she is far from being understated. She has created a distinct name for herself through her push towards the betterment of her constituency from which she has been an MP since 2009.

In this interview, Sule opens up about her views on womens safety, migrant crisis, queer community being vulnerable, her work as an MP and how she has tremendously managed COVID-19 in her constituency, even though Maharashta is struggling as a state..

You have been the MP of Baramati for the last three terms, how do you distinguish this term going different from the others?

Supriya Sule: Clearly COVID-19 is a challenge in itself but it has nothing to do with my term. It is a global issue and it doesnt matter which profession one is in.

How is Baramati tackling COVID-19?

Supriya Sule: Baramati Lok Sabha Constituency is handling the situation very well. People along with the administration are helping each other amidst the coronavirus crisis. We implemented stringent lockdown even after the national lockdown was reopened. The local administration did effective crowd prevention and management and contact tracing efforts, earning the district the tag of corona-virus free.

(Since the interview, few positive cases have come up in the district. In the last 15 days, Baramati record six cases of coronavirus and one death.)

In this interview, Supriya Sule opens up about her views on womens safety, migrant crisis, queer community being vulnerable, her work as an MP and how she has tremendously managed COVID-19 in her constituency, even though Maharashta is struggling as a state.

As a parliamentarian, how challenging is it to contain it in your constituency when entire Maharashtra is struggling?

Supriya Sule: I dont think Maharashtra is struggling in isolation, the world is struggling. It isnt about being a member of parliament, it is about being a human. Human misery is far more painful. Your profession doesnt matter when the whole world is going through such a miserable time. I cant be so selfish and insensitive to just view Maharashtra as battling the infection.

You have been the best performer in the parliament consecutively, this time for tackling the pandemic effectively. What are your thoughts on it and how have you made it possible?

Supriya Sule: It is a job that I love to do and I try to the best of my abilities. It is not about where I stand in politics but about how I work with the other MPs as a good team player and thats all that matters to me.

What are some of the other challenges that Baramati is facing?

Supriya Sule: The biggest challenge is to tackle the economic depression that will arise due to the coronavirus crisis. But everybody has challenges in the world and the beauty of it is that you have to rise above them. Thats why, as representatives, we have to find solutions to them and make peoples lives better with the legislation we make in parliament.

The biggest challenge is to tackle the economic depression that will arise due to the coronavirus crisis. But everybody has challenges in the world and the beauty of it is that you have to rise above them. Thats why, as representatives, we have to find solutions to them and make peoples lives better with the legislation we make in parliament.

But what are some challenges specific to your constituency that you want to do better in?

Supriya Sule: I want to completely eliminate malnutrition in the top-performing constituency that Baramati is. Secondly, I also want to tackle anaemia in my constituency and I want all these illnesses like TB, malaria, dengue, COVID-19 free constituency.

There has been a rise in domestic violence against women across the world, have you seen a spurt of such cases in your constituency and how are you dealing with the rise?

Supriya Sule: We have taken this proactive step to prevent similar cases from occurring in the Pune rural region. Vigilance committees consisting of women from three agencies the Women and Child Department, Anganwadi workers from Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and panchayat samitis are visiting houses in each ward of a gram panchayat. The tormentors would be transferred to an institutional quarantine facility, which could mean a town hall or a village lodge or any other public facility in villages.

How do you think this pandemic is impacting the queer community as you have always shown your support to them and have always pushed for gender-neutral laws in the Lok Sabha?

Supriya Sule: One doesnt have to wait for a pandemic to realize that the LGBTQ+ community is vulnerable; they have always been marginalized. We have to take care of our queer community round the year whether there is a pandemic or not.

With the current situation and the migrant crisis, how is your leadership ensuring to deal with it?

Supriya Sule: We have done a lot of work in sending people from our constituency to other parts of the country by ensuring them train tickets, water, food and other such relief material. In our district, it happened flawlessly and I am very grateful to the local administration who made sure that relief work happens smoothly.

We have set up camps across the Pune District on highways for people traveling to their homes to provide them with a safe place to rest and stay, with nutritious food, necessary medical care, toilet and registration for transport being arranged. Moreover, till May 21st, 50 shramik special trains have departed from Pune district. Around 62,000 people have traveled in these trains.

2,689 buses have departed to various places outside Maharashtra. Around 41,000 people have left for their homes in these buses. 3,238 buses and minibuses have left for different districts of Maharashtra with students and labor heading to their homes. We are helping migrant workers by providing them kits with essential commodities and hot meals.

(We conducted this interview on 28 May so the number may vary now.)

We have set up camps across the Pune District on highways for people traveling to their homes to provide them with a safe place to rest and stay, with nutritious food, necessary medical care, toilet and registration for transport being arranged. Moreover, till May 21st 50 shramik special trains have departed from Pune district. Around 62,000 people have traveled in these trains.

Also read: Political Apathy During The Pandemic Traumatized Me: Karur MP Jothimani

Do you think this pandemic has shown a very classist side of the society with the migrant workers being pushed to walk their way home?

Supriya Sule: It has always existed but the brutal truth is that we all have to face classism again and again because of some decisions that we have radically taken in the past. I dont want to blame anyone in these challenging times as it would be unfortunate.

How does a typical day look like in the times of coronavirus in the life of an MP?

Supriya Sule: We get up and we are on the phone the whole time to cater to distress calls. To help people deal with the crisis, we have to be connected with the administration at the state level and local level. It begins with having a review of the issues not only in the constituency but across the state. Some of the tasks include coordinating with the administration, conducting meetings on digital platforms with policy makers, legislatures and representatives from each sector. Apart from this, we have to take feedback from the constituents and streamline things accordingly and we believe in interacting with people across the state on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram too. My Team and I are available 24*7 to help people who need help.

Like everybodys mental health is impacted by the intense fear around coronavirus similarly, MPs must be affected too mentally. How is it like in your case?

Supriya Sule: Giving up is so easy and this is not the first challenge all of us are going through. We have seen so many challenges, but we learn from each other and evolve accordingly.

Do you think the ongoing political discourse of communalism is having an impact in your constituency? Tell us more about it.

Supriya Sule: We are all working extremely hard in helping every individual who needs help to be distracted by these things.

Also read: Amravatis Independent MP, Navneet Rana On Politics, Misogyny And COVID-19

Finally, how has the experience of being a female MP been for you? Were asking this in the context of women being a minority in the parliament and politics being a highly misogynistic workplace.

Supriya Sule: I come from a very liberal Maharashtrian society which is not gender-biased at all. Maharashtra is very gender-equal. I dont see gender in parliament. An MP is an MP no matter what gender they belong to.

All pictures have been taken from Supriya Sules Facebook profile.

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I love my job, Supriya Sule On Being A Top Performer In The Parliament - Feminism in India

The alert from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) follows reports that an airstrike on Sunday in Washhah District, in north-west Hajjah Governorate, killed seven children and two women.

Another two children and two women were reportedly injured and taken to Abs Hospital for treatment Hajjah Governorate in north-west Yemen.

Condemning the development, theUNs Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen,Lise Grande, said in astatementthat it was incomprehensible that in the middle of the COVID pandemic, when options for a ceasefire are on the table, civilians continue being killed in Yemen.

The country has long been a steppingstone for migrants seeking work in the oil-rich Arabian States to the north of Yemen.

But landing points across from the Horn of Africa have become increasingly dangerous since conflict escalated in March 2015, between the forces of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi - supported by a Saudi-led international coalition and mainly Houthi militia, for control of the Arab nation.

Today, widely described as the worlds worst humanitarian crisis, fears that COVID-19 has already gained a strong foothold in Yemen have been compounded by a potential famine alert last week from the World Food Programme (WFP), as some 10 million people face acute food shortages.

For nearly six years, Yemen has been an extremely unsafe place to be a migrant, said IOM spokesperson Paul Dillon. COVID-19 has made this situation worse; migrants are scapegoated as carriers of the virus and as a result, suffer exclusion and violence. In addition to the forced removals, fears about COVID-19 have led to migrants in Yemen experiencing verbal and physical harassment, increased detention and movement restrictions.

COVID-19 restrictions have reduced the number of migrant arrivals in Yemen by 90 per cent in recent months, while also leaving tens of thousands of Ethiopians in limbo, according to IOM.

Transportation through the country has been blocked and at least 14,500 migrants have been forcibly transferred between governorates, it said in a statement, with at least 4,000 people stranded in Aden, 2,500 in Marib, 1,000 in Lahj and 7,000 in Saada governorates.

In 2019, an average of 11,500 per month arrived in Yemen from the East African ports, according to IOMs Displacement Tracking Matrix, in search of work in Saudi Arabia.

In May 2019, 18,904 people made the crossing, while this year, only 1,725 arrivals were recorded.

Although more than 1,460 cases of new coronavirus infection and 418 deaths have been reported in Yemen, the IOM official noted that the agency and the broader humanitarian community in Yemen, are working under the assumption that the virus is widespread.

With most migrants sleeping outdoors or in unsafe abandoned buildings, they are at greater risk of exposure to COVID-19, Mr. Dillon continued.

They have little access to basic services like food, clean water or health care, a worrying situation given how pervasive the virus is believed to be in Yemen.

After being stranded in Yemen, a group of Ethiopian migrants return to Addis Ababa with the support of the International Organization for Migration. (July 2019), by IOM Bole Addis Ababa International Airport

In an appeal for continued access for humanitarians throughout the country, the IOM official highlighted grave concerns about virus transmission in places where migrants are being held.

Prior to the emergence of COVID-19 in Yemen and elsewhere, we know that many of these - many of these detention centres - are not particularly sanitary, Mr. Dillon said. Theres no access to some of the basics that one would need to address public health concerns such as COVID-19.

Last year, IOM reached nearly 60,000 migrants in Yemen with shelter support, health care, voluntary return assistance and psychosocial support.

According to Ms. Grandes Office, nearly 1,000 civilian conflict-related casualties have been reported in Yemen in the first six months of 2020.

Yemen cant take much more, she said. There isnt enough funding, health and water programmes are shutting, famine is stalking the country again, and people all across the country are being hit hard by COVID.

At a pledging event in Riyadh on 2 June, donors pledged only $1.35 billion of the $2.41 billion requested to cover essential humanitarian activities until the year end, leaving a gap of more than $1 billion.

Since mid-April, 31 of 41 of critical UN programmes have been reducing or closing down for lack of funding, Ms. Grandes Office said.

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In Yemen, thousands of Ethiopian migrants stranded, COVID-19 likely widespread - UN News